Ataragon

ATRAGON (1963, aka KAITEI GUNKAN) is a fun, fast paced sci-fi action thriller by the Japanese makers and stars of the Godzilla series. It seems the undersea kingdom of Mu wants to reclaim their rule on Earth. It's up to a plucky cheesecake photographer (Tadao Takashima) and a self-exiled WW2 Japanese Naval officer (Jun Tazaki) to stop them. There are laps of logic, which kind of add to the fun, and some well staged sequences. Film gets especially silly when the undersea Mu empire sends the Japanese Government an 8mm film explaining Mu's history and plans. This little film has optical titles, a narration, the works. Does this undersea kingdom have a film production unit complete with a film processing lab? Giddy fun here. ]

This is a great kaiju movie from Toho Studios. Right off the beginning of this film, we see an already intriguing scene when a scientist gets kidnapped by a creature from under the sea. The suspense builds when the creatures reveal themselves to be habitants of the Undersea Kingdom of Mu, and that they have come to Earth to reclaim its land (of course the Earth people do not accept that, so it's the super-submarine Atragon to the rescue). The scenes where it show the origin and the places of the Mu Kingdom are very entertaining. We actually get to see what the Mu Kingdom looks like. The scene where the Mu people sing and dance and worship is a real charmer. For this movie, the special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya are spectacular and the screenplay by Shinichi Sekizawa is exciting, spellbinding, and full of suspense and drama. The plot is solid and perfect and Ishiro Honda's directing is superb. The music by Akira Ifukube is excellent and fantastic. The main title music is full of melody and harmony and is probably my favorite Akira Ifukube music score. And, virtually everybody is in this movie: Tadao Takashima, Yoko Fujiyama, Yu Fujiki, Ken Uehara, Jun Tazaki, Kenji Sahara, Hiroshi Koizumi, Yoshifumi Tajima, Akihiko Hirata, Eisei Amamoto, and Susumu Fujita.

The scenes where the Earth humans and the Mu people battle each other is inspiring. Manda, the giant sea serpent, is an awesome-looking monster. He is the protector of the Mu Kingdom. From the sounds of the worships, Manda seemed to be a powerful creature. However, he is actually pretty weak since he hardly put up a descent battle with Atragon, and he appeared only briefly throughout the entire movie. That was a disappointment - more scenes of Manda would have made this an even better feature. But overall, this film is a great one from Toho.

Grade B+

Toho was totally on fire for a brief period in the early to mid 60's. Though even later they sporadically came up with something great like WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS or BATTLE OF THE SEA OF JAPAN, most of their best film were actually non-Godzilla films.

ATRAGON is one of the first and best examples of 60's Toho lunacy and excellent Tsuburaya special effects, combined with excellent acting. There's plenty of absurd science, ridiculous ideas like flying subs, massive destruction, fast-paced action, and even a giant monster to keep anyone's attention.

The only thing weighing this film down is the pacing being totally off. There is waaaay too much time devoted build-up and fleshing out too many 1-dimensional characters. A lot of sequences (like finding the legendary lost captain on an uncharted island) are way too drawn out and sap the film of a lot of excitement. The monster "Manda" is poorly animated and underutilized.

That said, the city destruction presented toward the end is some of Toho's best, with a massive crater opening up under the city and sucking buildings down several hundred feet, presumably killing thousands! Another highlight comes with the Mu sub going nuts on Tokyo bay destroying several merchantmen over and over again. It's colorful fun all the way which refreshingly can appeal to children and adults alike. Toho's later scifi films tended to try too hard to stay kid-friendly.

With a little editing and a few script rewrites, this could have been Japan's definitive sci fi epic. As it is, a flawed but enjoyable romp through Godzilla territory sans atomic lizard.

There's something about this film that I can't help but like.

Everything is just one step beyond plausible. The bad guys have all sorts of powers that are used once and then never used again. The flying submarine Atragon has been built completely in secret by an Japanese Navy unit, in self-imposed exile, that is preparing to win World War 2 for Japan in 1963! There's a giant pet serpent that attacks the submarine. An entire city is destroyed in a way I won't describe but is completely wacky.

Silly and lots of fun. The special effects go from great to cheap to unbelievably weird. The movie is slow at points but when the sub finally takes off, it's non-stop action. You'll recognize the actors from many of the Godzilla films.

The evil empire of Mu had sunk to the depths of the Pacific around 10,000 B.C., but, as the 1963 Japanese film "Atragon" shows us, by the year 1965 its people were alive and well, surviving on the ocean floor and ready to conquer the surface lands once again. After Hong Kong and Venice are destroyed, it seems that only the supersub Atragon might be able to save the nations of Earth from the Mu menace, and so a team is dispatched to locate its renegade Capt. Jinguji, a superpatriot for whom World War II has never ended.... Anyway, "Atragon" is a very fine example of a "tokusatsu" (Japanese special FX movie), and the ship itself, with its drilling bow, cold-air cannon and ability to fly through the air, is quite a pleasing creation. The film reunites director Ishiro Honda, composer Akira Ifukube and FX master Eiji Tsuburaya from 1954's "Gojira," the original Godzilla picture, as well as that earlier film's Akihiko Hirata, the inventor of the Oxygen Destroyer, here playing Mu Agent #23. "Atragon" also dishes out some impressive-looking sets (such as those gigantic royal chambers in Mu) and rousing battle sequences (the Mu sub, with its serpent-shaped cannon, destroying a Japanese fleet, looks especially awesome). Although not a "kaiju eiga" (monster movie), the film still offers us one "daikaiju" (giant monster) in the form of Manda, a snaky serpent creature that gives the folks on the Atragon a rough moment or two. The picture packs quite a bit of story--perhaps too much story--into its 96-minute running time and probably would have benefited from an extra half hour for a more leisurely exposition. Still, the film is undeniably fun, and the Mu empress really is something to see. The DVD that I just watched, by the way, from Media Blasters' Tokyo Shock series, looks very fine, and really is everything one could ask for.